Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Hello there internet. I’ve been recently have been having serious problems lately, and I feel that I could be in danger. Sorry if it’s a long read, but this has gotten really freaky for me. This is regarding a used game of Pokémon Sapphire I just recently got.

For those who don’t know, I’m somewhat of a Poké-nerd. I’ve been a fan of the series since me and my older brother got the first generation games, Red for him, and Blue for me. Eventually as time passed, my brother grew out of it, but I still remained faithful to the series (well, gamewise, at least. The show has gone downhill after the first series in my opinion.)

Anyways, it started a few weeks ago, when one of my internet buddies posted that he was going to start his Pokémon Ruby version over, and recording his progress and posting it on youtube. After talking about it for a bit with him, he joked about how I should restart a sapphire game. Even though it wasn’t serious, it got me in the mood to possibly play through it again.

However, I didn’t want to restart my old sapphire game over, since I had gotten so far in it, as well as had a lot of Pokémon not found in that game in the Pokédex. And I didn’t want to download an emulator and rom, so I decided that I would just get my hands on a new copy of the game. I searched for a few days online, finding a lot of sapphire games, but most were too pricey for me.

Finally, I found one that was about $3. The description said it was in good condition, with a scratch on the label, and some writing on the back with black permanent marker. Satisfied with what I found, I decided to purchase it. I couldn’t wait to get it in the mail.

A few days later, it finally arrived in the mail. As I unboxed it, I noticed the label had a scratch through the middle of it, like the description said online. As I turned it around, and saw the word “Sorrow” etched on the back of the cartridge in black permanent marker as well. Other than that, it looked like it was in fine shape. So then I put it in my Gameboy Advance SP and turned the power on.

After the title screen played, I looked at the first selection screen, when I noticed the save file on the game to be somewhat perplexing. The trainer’s name was “DAVE”, and he had all 386 Pokémon on his Pokédex. I checked his game file, and sure enough, he had every single Pokémon, even a legit Celebi (I checked Serebii.net to confirm this)! I was so astonished at this, as this was a goldmine for a Pokémon collector.

I also checked his team out, all of them level 100. This is his team:

Salamence

Girafarig

Plusle (nicknamed “Bolty”)

Sceptile

Blaziken

Swampert (nicknamed “Miko”)

Though, I was at a dilemma about what to do with his game file, whether to erase it, or preserve it. In the end, I transferred legendary, rare, and team to my Heart Gold game, so they wouldn’t be totally erased. After that, I started a new game, called my trainer “Brendan” (this is his default name. I chose Torchic as my starter, beat May, and got the Pokédex from Professor Birch, and saved my game at Oldale town. After that, I shut off the game, giving myself a break from it.

After a while, I decided to play some more, so I turned on the power. But after the intro screen, a message appeared on the screen:

Your save file is corrupted. The previous save file will be loaded.

And sure enough, my file was gone, and DAVE’s file was in its place. At first, I was a little disappointed, and thought nothing of it. Plus, I have experienced the same problem on my Diamond version of Pokémon, so this wasn’t something new to me. Plus, I knew a way around it; by saving the game twice. That way, it would revert to the first save, and my progress wouldn’t be deleted.

So, I restarted the game again, doing everything over, and saved twice. I turned the power off and on again, and the corrupt file message didn’t show itself, and my file was the same as when I last saved. I felt like I accomplished something there, and I went on in the game, reaching Rustboro city. I double saved it again, and went to sleep, since it was late at night at that point.

Now here’s where it starts getting freaky. The next day, I turned on the game, and the corrupt message showed up again. I chuckled at first, thinking it wasn’t a problem, but after the message went away, it showed that DAVE’s file was there! I was frustrated, and didn’t expect it, since I saved quite a few times. So, I went in and inputed the delete file code. I selected yes after it asked me if I wanted to delete it.

After that, the screen went black, and a message showed up. It said “My legacy… you’re trying to erase it…” At this point, I was freaked out of my mind. It felt like the game was talking to me. I don’t know why I didn’t shut off the game at this point, but I kept playing, like it was in control of me.

When the black screen disappeared, it showed Brendan in a cave room. I was at the south end of it, and a three square hallway in the center was to the north of me. The music that was playing was the same music you hear inside of Mt. Pyre, and Shoal cave. I checked the stats of my Pokémon and trainer, and it turned out to be the same as the trainer I made yesterday, and the Pokémon I had since my last save.

After checking, I walked through the passageway, which seemed like it was pretty long. Eventually, I found myself in another box room, just like the one I was in at the beginning. However, there was another Brendan standing in the middle of the room, facing north. I went up to the doppelganger, pressed A, and he turned around. This Brendan’s eyes were red, and he said “GO AWAY!”

Then a battle started. I was facing Pokémon Trainer DAVE, and his trainer was Brendan’s, except his eyes were red, and he looked angry. The music in the background was the Regi battle music. He had only one Pokémon with him; his Level 100 Plusle named Bolty. It looked sad, and the cry it gave out was if it fainted. Since my Pokémon were around level 11, I was no match for him, and his Plusle took out my team in one hit each. After my last Pokémon fainted, he appeared on screen again, and said “Now it’s your turn.”

Then the message said “Brendan is out of usuable Pokémon.” But instead of the normal message of “Brendan whited out…” it said “Brendan was killed.” Then the screen went black for a few seconds.

After the black screen went away, it showed a grassy field, with gravestones scattered around. There was a single golden gravestone in the middle. After a few seconds, a message appeared. It read a chilling message that made me shiver. (I changed the name part of the message on here, since I don’t want to reveal my real name):

Here lies XXX

I was shocked. There was a gravestone, with my real life name on it, and I never even used my name in the game. I turned off the game, and haven’t played it since.

I’m at a dilemma now, whether to pick it up again, or just get rid of the game, and get a new one. All I can say is that this scares the shit out of me.

As long as fishermen's tales have been told, there is always a recurring one.

It speaks of the Behemoth.

Seemingly sentient, this creature does not feed on humans, but finds delight in torturing them in the most gruesome ways possible.

After being swallowed whole, you enter a tunnel filled with extremely foul and noxious acid. You will feel a larger dread than you could have ever imagined. Unspeakable horrors fill up your mind until you can think of nothing else.

Once you are on the verge of killing yourself, the Behemoth expels you, always near other humans. If you do not succeed in killing these humans, you will most probably be taken to a mental asylum to spend the rest of your life.

If you do succeed in killing them, you will regain your sanity. But at what price?

Having spent my life in a buzzing metropolis, driving through the Midwest states was a hypnotic and sobering experience. Anyone who hs seen the bread-basket of America will know what I'm talking about Fields. Billions of acres of crops covering the land in waves of undulating elaves; the tames wilderness organized into rows, blocks, and circles, continuing on for hours and hours and days and days.

That's one of the strangest things about driving through the Midwest. The endless ocean of cornfields, birthed by man's labors seem to go on without end, but with no signs of those who created it. A car here, a small house there, a windmill, a rotting barn; it's as if some great civilization built it eons ago and then died out, leaving the living remains of their creatios for you to drive past and wonder at.

That's how I found myself on the evening of the last day in July, driving my red sedan along a veritable tunnel of a road cut across the cornfields. No broad highway for me; rather, I had chosen a graveled detour which I had been promised led back to the interstate. The last few exhausting days had seen me driving non-stop across the country, but today, as the sun peaked in the sky and began its freefall back into the earth, the end of my trip drew near. Rest, relaxation, and (who the fuck knows) maybe even fun lay at my feet; the only thing separating me from my goal was a mile more of gravel road and a few insignificant minutes on the freeway.

Unfortunately, my car was having a little trouble navigating the tiny country road. The assholes at the gas station had promised a worn but perfectly passable route, but a few miles in it became increasingly evident that neither description fit this sorry excuse for a road. Still, the anxiety didn't really sink in until the gravel path degenerated into a dusty path and then into mere ruts on the ground. As the weeds growing between the tire tracks began to hit the underside of my car, I briefly grappled with the idea of turning around and taking the more traditional, albeit longer, paved route. But soon, that bitch, stubbornness, got her way and I plowed on forwards against the rising weeds and deepening dark.

As the sun kissed its lower lip to the crust of the earth I stopped the car. My journey had come to an abrupt halt. The road, barely discernable among the vegetation and barely wide enough for the car, had ended. Stopped . Right in the middle of a field of corn. Apparently, this was the literal road to nowhere.

I cursed the hicks back at the 'Pump and Save' who had given me these shit directions and considered my options. Option, actually. The only action now was to return down the path I had so painfully traveled and then take the long paved road all the way around. Holding my breath, I tried to stifle a headache and several curse words running through my brain. That's when I heard that sweet sound, "PRBPRBPRBPRBPRBPRUBBBBBB," the unmistakable mating cry of a Harley tearing down a highway at full speed. Evidently, the interstate was straight ahead and only a few hundred yards away. I felt some guilt for what I was planning, but stubbornness' sisters, adventure and lethargy, convinced me that mowing down several hundred feet of some farmer's corn harvest was worth not spending more hours on the road.

I wasn't sure if a Sedan couldhold up to such punishment, but my car handled it like a pro, crushing and pulverizing the green stalks as they bent away and under the bumper. A couple of minutes and bam! I was through, back out into the dim evening light. I laughed and flipped the wipers to clean all the cream shrapnel covering my windshield. i stopped mid-laugh. This was a road, but definitely not the highway. A two land, paved, black road ran in a perfectly striaght line off into the darkness, disappearing into the evening light. I cursed the assholes at the gas station again and prepared to bash my way back to the dirt path. But, turning around, the beautiful hole I punched through the field was gone.

A wall of corn, not row to row, but stalk to stalk stodd in front of me, and I realized with a sinking heart that there was no way I could find the dirt path agin in that solid block of green. Once again I weighed my options. Just two now: left or right. I headed what I figured was due south and hoped this road linked up to the highway I so desperately strove.

Miles and miles I traveled. No change in scenery. Miles and miles of cornfields, pressing in on the car, enveloping me in the gloom of early night. No other cars. No other sounds. No radio reception. I stopped a few times at first listening for the signs of a busy highway, and later just listening for anything at all; anything beyond my own breathing. Nothing. Nothing but the crickets, gently chirping to each other across the ocean of waving stalks. More driving. The crickets faded away and only the occasional shrill whine of a cicada cried out into the night.

More driving. Low on gas. More driving. The moon peers over the tufts of corn and lifts itself into the sky, transforming the land into monochrome; draining away color. More driving. Very fucking low on gas. More driving. Nothing but corn, corn, corn fucking everywhere. More driving.

...a barn....?

A barn. Aglow from the light of the moon it appears like a ship in the sea, a dark but welcome shape rising above the monotonous and oppressive landscape. With a mixture of relief and apprehension I continue down the road. One turn, a short driveway, and I'm there; parking at the bottom of the sloping hill that leads up to its moonlit roof. It's built in an old wooden style, high gabled with heavy oak doors. It looks old. Like, not just the normal, "Oh, look, it's an old barn, kids," old, but really old, like it hadn't been looked upon, much less opened, in hundreds of years. Still, its presence offers some hope and companionship, shelter and safety.

Getting out of the car, I walk up the path to the front doors. Interestingly, the grass all around the barn - a meadow extending about fifty yards - is clearly meticulously cut and groomed. Also, the path up to the barn has been warn smooth, like some large machine has routinely pounded up and down, polishing and flattening the path. Striding up to the door, I knock. And knock again. I give it several minutes, but apparently no one is living inside. I open the doors and walk in. I was right...

The tench hit me first. I twas powerful, like a left hook right on the nose. Seedy and cloying and sour, it was like being dunked head-first into a porta-potty. I retch, struggling to force fresh air down into my lungs. But, as my eyes adjust and the stench escapes into the cool night breeze, the horror begins.

The barn is full of corpses. Dead bodies lie on tables, hang from the walls, and sit piled in great heaps into the corners. Green with rot, their open mouths are grinning; their decayed eyes staring emptily about the barn. The world starts to spin around - my knees buckle and my breath escapes once again. Hundreds of bodies. Some are still fresh; crumpled spread-eagle in the corners of the barn, huge red-ringed gashes covering their bodies, wounds that look like splashes of lipstick applied to their pale, naked forms. Older, rotten corpses, lain out flat onto slabs of stone and wooden tables and hung from the walls; cut open and divided in a grotesquely methodical pattern. Their heart was placed carefully near the head, tongue cut out, various organs lying discarded and piled onto the floor below, and their intestines bunched up and knotted like a nightmarish bouquet of flowers. Further into the barn lay the bits a pieces, brown dried hunks of what used to be heads, arms, and torsos. And crates. Giant wooden boxes piled neatly along the back wall of the barn, almost innocuous but horrible; dark stains seep from under the lid and run down.

But nothing compares to what hangs from the ceiling.

A fraying rope stretches down from the rafters. Hanging from the rope, gently swinging in the night are over the bloody tables is bound a horrible absurdity of something that was once alive. It resembles a victim of some terrible holocause, its skin shriveled tight against its chest and belly, the arms unnaturally long an thin, hog-tied behind its back. Its hands and feet are enormous, ending in gnarled fingers a foot long, a jagged, yellow nail at the tip of each one. Its head...a burlap sack has b een tied around its neck, completely covering the corpse's features. A gash runs the length of its neck, the dried remains of some purple ichor running down from the wound and staining the bag over its head.

Swinging there...

Dead in the moonlight.

I rise above the waves of fear and stumble out of the barn, slamming the door shut behind me. Outside, the moon still rises, the wind still blows, and the crickets chirp - the horrors inside the barn had no effect ont he simple sanctity of nature. Leave. Run. Drive. Those were the only thoughts that permeated my numbed mind. I turn away from the wooden monstrosity before me and run to my car, but...the car isn't there.

There is nothing around but cornfields. As I run around the bar, the rows of waving stalks dance before my eyes Trapped. Trapped in an ocean on a ship of the dead. No. I cannot stay here. I break for the fields of corn, the terrors behind chasing me heedlessly into the unknown ahead. As I hit the edge of the corn stalks, my courage fails me. I cannot go ahead and I cannot go back. I stand there, shrouded by the complete silence.

A light breeze tousles my hair as I stand motionless and frozen. Gently, the field of corn sways in place as the wind picks up. Then, the wind really begins to pick up. The corn stalks begin to march back and forth in what is quickly becoming a maelstrom. The wind whips my face and tears across my arms. It reaches down my thrat, pulling my scream out and mising it with the surrounding chaos. Rain! It's suddenly raining, a torrent, a solid sheet of water falling from the heavens, knocking me off my feat, churning the solid ground into liquid. Lightning! Thunder! Arcs of electricity fly before my face, striking and touching the ground at my feet. I run back to the only shelter there is, all my fear forgotten in the struggle to survive this onslaught from above.

I have barricaded myself in the barn. I'm shrouded in perfect darkness except for the pulses of lightning that glint off the outlines of the dead. This is past fear. I'm petrified, crouching against the bolted oak doors, the rain hammering a machine gun fire behind me, trying to bash its way in. Behind me lies certain death, in front of me lay the dead. The pulsing lightning seems to animate them. They dance and shiver and grin and laugh. They have nothing to fear. They laugh at me and my fear, they laugh at my blood, they laugh at my heartbeat. To this cacophony of laughter I sit frozen, watching over those that cannot move, move.

(I tried to grammar edit as good as I could, but right now my hands are cold, which makes me type like an idiot, so I'm going to leave it like this.)

I always have hot green tea in the morning. I get excited about consuming something beneficial to my health. I think it helps offset anything negative I put in my body.

It started recently. My live-in girlfriend started racing out of bed early in the morning, staying gone for a couple of hours, then getting back in bed. She said she had diarrhea a lot, something about irritable bowel syndrome. I dunno. I know she wasn't eating right. I also know that our relationship was in the shitter and she's just hanging around my place because she can't find a place to stay.

I'm pretty sure she hates me now after years of companionship. I probably shouldn't have cheated on her. To me, a fuck is a fuck but I love her. She can't understand the difference or what it's like to be a young man like me. I guess I love her because I feel the need to help her. She always seems helpless and unstable, as if she couldn't take care of herself on her own. I know, that's bad of me to say but it's true with her.

I work a lot. She doesn't have a job because she has failed to keep one. She keeps the house clean and washes my clothes so I don't mind it so much. Well, back to the stuff that has happened, my morning tea had been tasting a little bit off. I can't explain the taste. It just tasted wrong. But I didn't feel sick from it or anything. Nothing seemed unsuual except that my girl was really sick. She was in bed for days and I was really worries about her. She refused to see a doctor, said it was just something that had to pass. In hindsight, a lot of toilet paper did go missing so I suppose she was telling the truth.

She never got better. Three nights ago, she told me why she was sick. It's true, she was pregnant for 3 months. She miscarried the child. She said she passed the child in the shower while I was at work. You could imagine my surprise. She went on to explain that when it happened, she lost control of her thoughts and actions' only thinking about how she could make this event hurt me. She unscrewed the line to the water heater and stuffed the dead fetus up into the tank where it has rested in its water grave for over a week. "Just to make you feel this like I do", she said.

After a long, painfully emotional argument, she finally agreed to go to the hospital. I called an ambulance and she's been gone for three nights now. She's doing better physically but the doctors are sending her to a psychiatric hospital when she is deemed physically capable. The authorities are searching the trash and landfill site to find the remains of the baby.

It's morning of the fourth day and I'm sitting here with my hot green tea. I've grown accustomed to the flavor of my only child, ever-spoiling in the water. I've always thought my morning ritual was meaningful yet now it means more than anything. This tea is a part of me and her. I miss her. I would have taken care of this baby and her all the same. Now that I know, every shower I take and every dish that I was is a ritual of being close to my child. I haven't washed my clothes at home since I found out. It's a waste.

The faucet seemed a little clogged when I filled my cup this morning, so I unscrewed the tip of the faucet and was surprised to see my little baby's hand in the piece. So tiny, stark white; I held it. I'll have to collect the rest very carefully. I'm making a little box so I can have a place to collect my child. I'll store it in the freezer. Until them, I'll just sip my tea with a watchful eye.

He smashed the dark oak desk into shards of stray wood strewn about the chamber with his sledgehammer. He couldn't eat the whole thing in one bite.

As the veins in his eyes pulsed and his teeth ground for individual superiority over the others, he tried to think of something that didn't involve what the guard outside the heavy door was going to watch him eat through the bulletproof glass.

"Blueberries, they're nice, I remember blueberries. The best ones came from the big bushes outside the McCoy house in Michigan. I'm going to eat a desk for a crime I didn't commit. Blueberries."

He laid his hammer down, sat on the floor, and stared for a few minutes at the wall. He eventually picked up a dime-sized chip of wood. He held his nose and opened his mouth wide.

"This is a blueberry. This is a McCoy blueberry. They'd always be happy to give me their blueberries, and this is one of them."

As he swallowed it whole, he gagged as he felt the edges of the chip cut the lining of his throat. He forced it into his stomach. The back of his mouth became sour with little drops of blood.

"That was a blueberry, a very sweet blueberry, picked at just the right time. I probably liked it."

He choked down more chips. More blood came up, and nausea set in from the wood and its varnish. He couldn't throw up; then he would have to start over.

He got to his feet and raised the sledgehammer high above his head to make more of these pieces out of the bigger ones.

"I love blueberries, I'm going to eat a lot of blueberries."

The door flung open, and before he could say anything, the guard took his hammer and slammed the door.

"Well, it looks like I'm going to be eating big blueberries."

He sat on the floor and grabbed a foot-long length of splintered oak. He tried to break it, but it would only break in half.

He pointed his face at the florescent light on the ceiling and opened his mouth wide.

"This is a blueberry. I know it looks nothing like a blueberry, but it is. I'm a sword swallower, I can eat a sword, a sword made out of blueberries."

He nudged the wood past the opening of his throat. He felt it scrape, he felt it slide, gently, gently, gently.

"This is a blueberry. It doesn't taste like one, but it probably is."

He felt his mouth water, and in doing so he gagged. He couldn't breathe. He tried to pull the wood out of his throat but the edges were caught on the inside of him.

With a long scream saturated by his torn throat, he ripped the stick out and threw it to the other side of the chamber. His mouth was a fountain of saliva and blood. His esophagus might as well have been on fire with the pain.

He turned his head, and saw a sturdy board that made the surface of the desk. He only split it in half with the hammer.

It’s only a few weeks since I left the mainland. Good riddance. It’s been years since I got my doctorate. I was trying to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps, becoming a scientist to try and better the world. In the mainland, however, I’d unfortunately experienced nothing but set backs in concern to my peers and my government. Using the knowledge I’d gained through years of studying engineering and robotics, I built my own craft in secret. It’s taken a while, but I finally completed it. I set out today from the main continent toward one of the larger, uninhabited islands far from my home nation.

I’ve had my fill of my corrupt, unjust government and what they call progress. After all, this is the same government that allowed my favorite cousin to die years prior, when she fell ill to a terminal disease. This was same government who jailed my grandfather, then in their employ, for attempting to find a cure for her fatal ailment. I had always sought to use my gifts to better humanity, yet I knew, as I grew older that the culture of the mainland would not allow me to. It was because of this that I’ve set out, far away to an unclaimed chunk of land, in an attempt to pioneer my own nation. I hope to create a land where corruption and sadness are nonexistent. I know this is not completely possible, but I must try.

By morning I will arrive at the new land. I must rest now.

DAY 1

I set forth to explore the island. There are no people here, but there is a great myriad of wildlife. The animals seemed to be dwarf variations of those I’d find on the mainland. Most of them, even those that are considered feral and territorial, such as bears and walruses, have proven friendly and sociable towards me. I must take care to protect them and preserve a safe environment for them as I build my new country. Things of such a good nature should be protected, after all.

During my survey of the island, I came across the ruins of an old, extinct culture. Apparently it had inhabited the island before, yet there was no trace of its people. At the core of the structure, I found a group of relics atop pedestals. Afraid to disturb them, I ran a test to determine their composition, in hopes that it may’ve given me some clues to the culture that was here before. The relics seemed to be emitting a large amount of energy. A machine would easily be able to harness it as a power source. Fearful that, should I been followed by my government, they would fall into the wrong hands I removed the six of them from the ruins. In doing so, I accidentally reactivated the structure’s archaic security system: a series of traps that rely on a lava flow running underneath the ground for both its power source and firepower. The natives obviously realized the power of these relics, as they wanted them protected as well.

I’ll have to disable it later, after I’ve put things in order. Now in order to build my country, I must keep these animals safe as well as the relics. This is becoming more troublesome than I initially imagined, but I feel I will persevere. Every problem has a solution, after all. Tomorrow, I will begin construction.

DAY 2

I began construction today. In order to keep the animals out of harm’s way, I’ve developed numerous suspended animation systems. The initial model was a capsule structure designed to house numerous animals at once, though the number was still limited. After all, I didn’t want them slumbering in a cramped space where they could be unintentionally injured while they were unconscious. After filling up the few models I had, I discovered there was a slight overflow of the population. Not wanting them to be injured by the robots I’d built to help with construction, I had to engineer some way to house this overflow. I created portable suspended animation capsules and added them to the internal workings of my worker bots.

This’ll house the overflow, and keep them safe. The animals will be completely unconscious the entire time, so when matters are put in order, they’ll wake up as if they’ve just been asleep for the night. This is one issue out of the way.

As for the relics, I’ve placed them in secure locations throughout the island. Each of them is hidden in a virtual reality simulation stations that I’ve engineered as a barrier. The unearthly physics and constantly changing gravity in the program would make it impossible to retrieve the relics inside. Since I’m the only one with access to disable the program, I’m the only one who can get to them. They’ll be safe for now. Now I can move onward with building my nation.

DAY 17

I’ve established my base of operations at the center of the island. It’s a bit barebones at the moment, but setting up the rest of the island first is more important. The robots have made construction go along so much faster. I’ve already set up a city and a highway. At least I have my nation’s capital completed.

I came across a series of buried ruins and an underground lake while building both. I built over it, while taking care not completely destroy the structure. I sent several of my robots down into the ruins to investigate. Hopefully, they’ll return with valuable data about the island’s original people.

I made the decision to preserve the island’s coast as is. It was too difficult for me to sully such natural beauty. I sent a few of my robots there to monitor the area and to keep watch for signs of any visitors. I don’t want any tourists or government officials interfering with my plans, after all.

I keep forgetting to disable the traps in the aboveground ruins I encountered on my first day here. The days keep growing shorter, I suppose. I’ll have to take care of it later.

DAY 18

The robots I’d stationed on the coast had alerted me to a disturbance in the early hours of the morning. The images sent back by them appeared to be of some sort of beast. It was unlike any creature I’d ever encountered. I’m certain the zoologists on the mainland would’ve declared it a new species. Despite the intrigue the creature inspired, the reports indicated that it was attacking, and worse, destroying my robots. The animals housed in the robots’ internal suspension capsules would likely die of shock from the suspended animation process being halted unexpectedly. I had to do something.

I set out from the base in my craft, armed, but not looking for a fight. I optimistically assumed that perhaps this animal was one I’d missed in my sweep of the island, and was reacting this way out of fright. I hoped I could calm the creature upon my arrival, and put him into a sleep enclosure like the other animals. How wrong I was. When I arrived at the coast, I spotted the creature from the air, attacking the en mass suspended animation capsule I’d made for the coastal area. I descended in my craft and called out to the creature, in an attempt to reason with and/or calm it.

On first sight, the creature turned and lunged for my vehicle. I dodged out of the way and activated the weapons I’d installed, hoping to subdue it. Such an attempt proved futile. It was too quick to land a single hit upon, and before I knew it, it’d ripped the weapons off of my craft. I had no choice to retreat.

I flew away in my craft; fearful for what chaos this monster may bring to my new home. As I departed, I turned back to see the beast destroying the capsule. The animals I’d safely tugged away convulsed out of the wreckage, flopping about the ground below. My heart sank at the sight. I have to do something to stop this monster.

DAY 19

The airborne drones I released have tracked the creature’s route. It was crossing through the above ground ruins upon the last report. From what I can tell, the monster is heading for the city I just recently finished building. My new country’s capital is standing for three days, and already it’s under threat of attack. What’s more, it seems it found and disabled the VR Security device at the coast and retrieved the relic inside. In addition to being ferocious, it seems the creature is intelligent as well. Foolishly, I’d placed a capsule on the outskirts of the ruins, thinking it was safe. I felt I must go and retrieve it before the creature can destroy it and harm the animals inside.

I equipped my craft with a flamethrower, hoping this destructive beast couldn’t survive flames. When I arrived, once again, it proved too fast to actually land a hit. It sliced the flamethrower clean off of my craft, like a knife through butter. I had to flee again. I’ll have to block its progress at the city itself, I’m afraid. Let’s just hope my plan works.

DAY 20

The additional security I added to the city failed to keep the creature out. Most every robot I stationed there has been destroyed. My attempt to personally assault the creature failed again. I fled, in hopes to find another place to head it off, and later received reports that it’d dived into the underground ruins and destroyed every robot I put down there.

I attempted to dam up a portion of the underground lake to flood the ruins and drown the monster. I optimistically thought I could quell it this way, but the attempt failed. I suspect the creature may have increased lung capacity, as it later escaped the ruins after they’d been completely flooded. It seems bent on destroying every piece of technology I’ve placed on this island.

Less than an hour later, it was attacking the robots I’d left monitoring the highway. I attempted to head it off yet again, but I failed. Nothing I do, no weapon I try will stop this beast. I retreated to my base.

My robots outside the base have all been destroyed. The beast has also managed to find and disable each of the VR systems: now it has all of the relics in its claws. It’s planning something. All I know is that it wants me gone.

DAY 21

I haven’t slept. The creature breached the front gates of the base at the brink of dawn. Every robot and machine in its path has been brutally destroyed. I got desperate and opened up a trap door into a set of ruins I’d built the base on. I managed to plunge the demon down into it and seal it off, while hiding myself behind a force field.

I thought I was safe at that point, as there seemed to be no sign of it returning. To cool my head, I retreated into my lab to try and work on a large-scale hydraulic press I’d been working on to help me better manufacture my robots. It was then that the creature emerged from the floor and attacked the machine. Apparently, there was no killing it.

It totaled the machine before I could blink. I fled the lab and made my way down the corridor to the launch hatch for the craft I’d flown to the island. I could see the beast in hot pursuit. I managed to jump into the craft and lift off in time, flying off from the cliff overlooking the island below. I thought I was in the clear, but then it felt as it something had struck the back of the craft. The machinery sparked and burst into flames. I turned my head to look back at the launch hatch, and I saw the beast standing there, grinning in a grotesque satisfaction that it’d ensured my demise.

As I plummeted into the rocks below in a cloak of flames, I assured myself that I would survive. I would bring this world a utopia, even if it killed me. It was then, for the first time in my life, that I felt contempt for another living thing. This beast, for no reason, has destroyed all my hard work and risked the lives of those innocent creatures. It had more than earned my hatred. As sure as my name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik; I HATE that Hedgehog.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

It was April or May of 2009. My friend (let's call him Vinnie) was in from out-of-town and we decided to drink at about noon. We went to a party store and bought some 40s and just walked around town brown-bagging it. We got a call from another friend (Justin) that he and his girlfriend (Kim) were going to drop by. By now, it was the early afternoon and we made it back to my place.

I had mentioned to Vinnie that the house next door was condemned; it had a bright pink sign on the front door with CONDEMNED written on it because the garage behind the house was collapsing. I had never seen anyone go in or out of the house in the two years I had been living next door to it. I had just assumed it was abounded or got foreclosed upon.

As kids, we'd always love exploring the woods and looking for random things. It only seemed fitting that we go into the house and have a look around. We were pretty drunk at this point and just thought, 'fuck it, let's do this.' We wentin behind the house, through the partially collapsing garage. The door that went from the garage to the house was locked, but after a while we were able to force it open. To our immediate right was the basement, so we decided to go down there first. We were amazed by the amount of stuff down there; there were so many tools and hardware supplies. In the back of the basement, in its own room, was a large train track set-up. It was creepy.

While we were in the basement, we got a call from Justin and Kim saying that they had arrived at my house. We came back out through the garage again and I grabbed my Nikon. Kim and Justin were pretty pumped about going in and what we discovered, so we went back in and showed them the basement. After looking around, we went back upstairs to the kitchen. Again, there was a lot of stuff in there. A table in the corner of the room was full of bottles and cans, which we planned on taking after looking around the restof the house (there is a ten-cent deposit for cans here).

We took some time poking around the kitchen, too. It, of course, smelled bad in there, but it wasn't overwhelming. The smell was just that of a musty house. I made the mistake of looking in the refrigerator and the smell of THAT overwhelmed me from the rotting food thats' smell was being contained until I opened it.

There was a door that separated the kitchen from the living room and I was the first to open it. It was a swinging door and when I opened it I caught a glance of a figure sitting in a chair facing away from me. All I knew is that someone was in the house and we were trespassing. I quickly turned around and while walking towards the back door, I told my friends in a whisper, "Shit, there's somebody here," and we all ran out. We went into my backyard and I told them that I saw someone sitting in a chair in the living room.

My friend Vinnie, who was most likely more drunk than I was, said, "Fuck it, man. He has no more of a right to be there than us. It's probably a junkie." I was not as excited to go back into confront a squatting junkie, but I was convinced when Justin informed me that he was most likely high as fuck and wouldn't be able to do shit. We ended up going back in through the back again, but more quietly this time. When we made it to the kitchen, Vinnie was the first, this time, to open the door to the living room. The rest of us stood back and watched him watch the figure in the chair.

Vinnie swung the door shut, looked at us, and said, "That's a dead body." We all looked at him in shock, but it was obvious that he was serious. We all trickled into the living room and gathered around the body. His skin was black (even though we found out later he was white) and was sitting in a chair facing the front of the house. It was obvious that he had been there for a while. The smell near the body was almost unbearable; we needed to cover our mouths and noses with our shirts like respirators. This made Vinnie and I sober up really quick. There was a complete silence between our group of four while we observed the body. Nobody said a word.

I can't really tell you what happened next, as it gets kind of foggy from there. The effect of seeing a dead body is a kind of surreal experience. We looked around the rest of the house, upstairs and in other rooms on the ground floor, and eventually found a journal next to the body. We flipped through the journal and every day he listed what he ate, the temperature, and how much money he made in returning cans that day (which I found strange, considering there was at least $50 worth of cans sitting around in the house).

I took some more pictures of the house and of the body (although, at the time, Vinnie was very opposed to doing this) and we left to go to the bar. At some point, Kim left and it was just us three, but I remember her taking in the experience quite well and was not as disturbed by it as much as other girls would have been (some people don't even want to hear the story, let alone see the pictures).

We went to the bar that night, sat in the back, and just quietly talked about what had happened. After the bar, drunk again, Justin and I went back in the house to check it out one more time. I took more pictures and Vinnie and Justin left for the night. I told my roommates about it and one of them told his girlfriend. She was so disturbed she said she refused to come over until the body was gone. She said if I didn't call the cops, then she would.

The next morning, hung over, I decided that I better call the police. I called my friends to let them know and they made me hold off on doing it until they came over. I waited and called an anonymous tip line when they arrived.

when I called the tip line, I simply said that I found a dead body. The operator seemed frazzled and told me to hold the line. She told me multiple times not to hang up. I held the line and we were put on with a detective for our city. I explained what happened and what the address was. He asked me my name, but I told him he had to be fucking insane if he thought I would be giving my name to him.

Right after hanging up, we all went to the front porch to wait for the cops to come. Not even a full minute after hanging up the phone, I saw a cop car round the corner with its lights on. We were really surprised by the response time, but it ended up driving by the house. A few minutes later, a few cop cars rolled up and asked us if we had seen anyone in or out of the house lately. I told him that I saw nobody near the house in the last two years I had been living there.

The police went in for a while and a white van showed up. Eventually, some girls that lived across the street came over wondering what was going on. The police said they found a body and we, of course, acted shocked. They took out the body covered on a stretcher (they must have had a hell of a time prying him from the chair and also took out a gun that was in the house (the gun was an old-style rifle that had been leaning against a wall in the living room). I talked to one of the cops and he said that the guy's family would have them check up on the guy from time to time to make sure he was doing alright (apparently, he wanted nothing to do with his family) but they stopped doing so. He just wanted to be left alone.

The only thing that we took from the house was the journal he kept. There is a bunch of nice handwriting in it, and it with addresses and such. The first entry was on January 21st, stating that the notebook was found in a dumpster. There is also an entry talking about when the power was turned out and notes to buy oil (there were a bunch of oil-burning lamps in the house). The last entry in the journal, May 3rd, says, "Sick - very flu 4 cans. Sick as heck flu can't eat." It is eerie. The date matched up with the most current newspaper he had in a pile in the living room.

We decided not to take anything else, out of respect for him and his family. I know that certain things were worth a lot of money, but I'm not about to be the type of person that loots a dead guy's house. I figured that the family would come and get the stuff, but they never did. The house ended up being sold and I saw the people who bought it bring out boxes filled with sheet music, toy trains, etc. The house has since been fixed up and it's being rented out. I could find no information on either the house or the guy who died, even over a year later.

I am posting this just to share my experience. This happened in 2009, but I am just now deciding to share it with everyone. I am not trying to make jokes or act like it is a funny story. This guy died alone in his house and was found by strangers over a year afterhis death. Make jokes if you want, but this guy was alone and obviously had some problems.

Sentience is something you don't think about very much. You have it or you do not. People have it, trees do not. But I am (how curious that I can even consider the concept of "I am!") I am a tree, and I feel. I perceive. I am aware. As a tree standing on damp earth, with my roots ever seeking more water, more nourishment, I became aware that if the water dried up I could not go somewhere else to find more. Animals and birds constantly moved around me, seeking the things they needed to keep them alive, but I had to stand in one place and wait. And hope. That, I realized, was not an enviable situation. I did not enjoy it.

What? Oh, yes, I am capable of enjoyment. That is how I first learned I was aware. All my life I had responded with pleasure to the sun as it summoned my sap to rise and triggered the photosynthesis making my existence possible. Light reacted upon me in ways I enjoyed without thinking, for thought did not seem necessary. Then, a new pleasure came to me. A human female began sitting beneath me almost every day when the sun was highest. Often she leaned against my trunk and read poetry, sometimes aloud.

I cannot say when I discovered I was actually listening to her and trying to make sense of the patterns of sound she made. But I looked forward to her arrival each day. Something about the vibrations of her voice sank through my bark and set up answering vibrations within my core. In time, I understood her language.

From things she said, I perceived she was unhappy because she was lonely. The nature of humans, it seems, is to want to be in pairs, andthis human female did not have another of her own kind to pair with.

Neither did I, I realized. So I must have been lonely - until the human female came to be, like sun or rain, and began providing something I had needed without knowing it.

In time, she talked to me as her kind talk to one another. She spoke of what she called her troubles. She was not pretty, she said. She was only clever and the young males copied her papers in class but took other girls to dances. I did not understand what pretty and clever meant, or what classes and dances were, but by listening I learned. I learned that I stood upon a college campus at the far end of an athletic field, and the female who came to me every day at her lunch hourwas studying science.

How she perceived I was interested I cannot tell, but she began reading aloud from her textbooks. Perhaps she did it to clarify her thought processes, but in this way I learned about sentience, photosynthesis, and a galaxy of concepts I had never concerned myself with before.

The school year passed. I lost my leaves and should have slept, but as long as the weather was no ttoo cold my human female still came to me, so I forced myself to stay at least partially awake, listening to her. Her presence rescued me from the loneliness I had not known I was suffering. She became very precious to me, like sun and rain.

How could I communicate with her and tell her these things? My whole existence was changed by her, yet she did not know. She began a new class, one on something called theosophy and I listened to her muse aloud on questions of divinity, seeking spiritual insight rather than empirical knowledge. She spoke of souls, destiny, heaven and hell, and I stretched myself like a young sapling in an effort to keep up with her leaping thoughts.

Then her mood turned darker. In her class was a young man more passionate about spirituality than she and from her words I learned he was a devotee of an organized religion. His was a sect obsessed with sin and his zealotry was beginning to have an influence on her. She began to worry aloud about the condition of her own soul.

I was forced to consider the question, then, of whether a tree could have a soul. Was sentience proof of the posession of one? Then I remembered some poetry she had one read, a phrase about the soul being love's vessel.

I loved, surely. I loved her, as I loved sun and rain and for the same reasons; she had become necessary to me. She had expanded my existence and without her I would shrink back into a darkness I had not recognized as darkness. I loved; I had a soul.

That human male, he was dragging her into a darkness. Icould sense it, I could feel the flagging of her bright spirit. With his talk of sins and hellfire he was crushing her. Was he telling her the truth?

If there were souls, they must have been created; the girl and I agreed on that point. So there was a constructive principle in the universe - and there must be a destructive principle as well, dark for light. The Devil, Prince of Hell. He surely had power, I saw evidence of evil every day in the way human beings treated each other. So the devil had power over physical actions.

The human male made my girl cry. I stood helplessly over her and suffered with her, this girl who read poetry and studied the sciences and searched for answers. I raised my branches and tried praying with all my might to our creator, begging that I might be allowed to help her.

Nothing happened. Her eyes were frequently red-rimmed and she was growing thinner as the periods of daylight lengthened again. She had, in her lonliness, tried to pair with the human male in her class, the one who was obsessed with the notion of sin. Her desires for procreation, which seemed perfectly natural to any tree, had been rejected by him as sinful. He had rejected her.

I hated him. Hatred was another new feeling for me.

The next day I saw her walking on the campus, and the human male was with her, at her elbow, yammering at her. I could tell from the way her shoulders slumped that he was making her miserable with his fanaticism. She moved closer to him as if to warm his cold heart with her own young warmth, but he pulled away from her.

He pulled away from a creature as pliant as a willow tree, with skin as white as a sycamore. I would not have pulled away from her. I felt myself yearing toward her, yearing to comfort her...and my roots tore free from the earth. They moved beneath me, shaping themselves into clawed feet capable of carrying me. At first I was too shocked to move, but I realized my offer had been accepted and the bargain was sealed. And I was glad. Glad!

I set off across campus toward my girl and the human male. My weight crushed the grass and gouged the earth and I swayed unsteadily, for such movement was strange to me. But I was not thinking of myself. I thought only of the girl, of getting to her and comforting her. I thought of stopping the human male from hurting her anymore.

He saw me first, over her shoulder. His face contorted and he took a step backward, but I was gaining better control of myself by then. I got to him while he was too astonished to run and I slammed him across the throat with one of my branches, being careful not to let it hit her. I am an oak tree. It took little effort to smash his neck, for humans are flimsy things. He fell into a heap onto the earth, his body aready surrendering its heat, ready to furnish nutrients to the waiting soil.

The girl screamed. I had not expected her to be frightened of me, for we were friends. We were more than friends. I leaned toward her, trying to reassure her, and I heard myself making sounds. The sounds I made surprised, then horrified me. Unofortunately, I did not have a human voice, any more than my roots were human feet. I had an oak tree's voice, huge and deep and echoing with an oak tree's approximation of human words.

The girl's eyes dilated with terror. She ran from me, faster than I, with all my weight, could follow. The other humans within sight of me were running too, racing toward the nearest building. Doors slammed. Then some men came out of that building, shouting and gesturing in my direction. One of them dragged a metal canister with a hose and a valve. When he touched the valve, a tongue of flame licked the air. Without a glance backward, my girl fled from me and hid herself in the man-made caverns of brick and stone. She rejected me and everything I was, as the human male had rejected what she was.

Too late, I understood heaven. Heaven was sun and rain and the lazy tenderness of newleaves unfolding in the spring.

With no reason to try to save myself, I stood on the damp earth and watched the men come cautiously toward me with their canister of bottled flame. They would burn me into a pillar of fire. If she watched from a window, the girl would see it; she would be able to hear my roar of agony.

I moved into my house five years ago. In the last two years there have been strange things happening. It all started in October of 2004. I noticed strange footsteps but shrugged them off, thinking there was probably an explanation for them. My sixteen year old son, Michael, slept in the only downstairs bedroom while his little sister and I have our own bedrooms upstairs.

I would wake up in the morning with Michael sleeping on my bedroom floor. He, at first, heard strange noises and soon saw shadows moving across the room. He came running from his room one day because a plug flew from the outlet. I put it down to electrical faults. He's felt something brushing him, too.

I have been with my partner, Mike, for a year now and he moved in with me in April. At first, Mike couldn't sleep with the noise of someone moving about up and down the stairs. He always checked, but there was never anything there. He would always say, "Did you hear that?" I was just used to hearing them.

Four months ago, Mike was sitting at the computer beside Michael's bedroom door and he jumped up in pain. He lifted up his shirt and found a deep scratch on his stomach. There were no sharp instruments about and no possible explanation for this. The computer always acts up for him but no one else in the family. I am also catching shadows out of the corner of my eye and have been putting it down to my imagination.

We were lying in our bed two weeks ago watching TV. I lie nearest the doorway and caught a shadow going into my daughter's bedroom. Mike jumped up and told me he saw it too. For once, I was completely freaked out. I had to sleep on the other side of the bed.

Everything was forgotten, but two days ago Mike was sitting at the computer again, holding a piece of drawing paper in his lap. The paper hit him in the eye somehow and took a chunk from his cornea. He was admitted to the hospital and is in complete agony. He cannot explain how the paper hit his eye from the angle he was holding it on his lap, but we know that even if he tried to do it to himself it would be impossible.

At first, I thought it was just a mischevious ghost of some kind, but now I am starting to get very worried with this thing assaulting my partner. It is no longer mischevious, but evil. I wonder if it is the shadow that has always been with me, that I have always seen from the corner of my eye...or if it's something that was already in the house.

Two weeks ago, my son came in screaming from the bathroom saying he'd seen a bloody face wrapped in a dirty sheet. He killed himself last Friday and we are all devastated beyond words.

Your eyes are a little sore, but you aren't ready to go to bed yet. The thread you're reading on /x/ is interesting enough to keep you awake; to tell the truth, it has you a little too creeped out to close your eyes just yet. You know they're just stories written by people just like you and in the beginning they served to give you a good chill before bed.

The more you read them, the more you wonder if some of them might be based on reality. Yes, the Candle Cove story is confirmed fiction, but didn't you see things as a kid that no one else seemed to see? Weren't these things you tried to explain to your parents, fears they couldn't enderstand. Eventually you learned that your parents were older and knew your fears were irrational, but what if they weren't? What if you really DID see something they couldn't see?

No, you think to yourself. That's just silly. They're only stories.

Then again, there are other stories that throw your skepticism off a little. The smile.jpg news article is obviously fake. A photoshopped image of a dog smiling couldn't possibly make people go insane or want to kill themselves, but now that you look at the picture, it DOES make you feel...weird. Not insane or suicidal, but definitely not normal.

Stop it, you say to yourself. You're acting like a child. It's okay to be scared by creepy stories when you're eleven years old at a sleepover, but now you're older and you know these things are only works of the imagination.

Still, you can't shake those feelings.

Eventually, you have worked yourself into a fear that is just strong enough to keep you awake once you've closed the computer. You feel silly, but- didn't you just see a shadow move out of thecorner of your eye? And what was that noise that came from inside the wall behind your bed? You glance at yourself in the mirror, but you just don't look quite right.

You feel a chill. Suddenly, you find yourself pulling your feet under the covers, although you can't explain why. You have to go to the bathroom, but there's no way you're getting out of bed. You can only lay there, paranoid and alert, until the sun comes up and light fills your room.

A lamp just sat there in the middle of the room, covered in dust atop a rusty, round table. It sat near a single window which shone dull blue light in from the sunless day. We stumbled upon this room while exploring an apartment that was said to have always been empty. The apartment felt heavy with dust and dead with quietness. We couldn't explain how quiet it was as the building's residents were anything but; living here had always been robust with energy. No one seemed to bother with the room, either; they just passed it towards the bathroom. We decided to have a look.

We stood in the hall looking at the lamp, just being there drinking in the light. Its body was black with gold plating and the shade was a typical off-white. After what seemed like half an hour of just staring at it, I noticed that it didn't have a wire. Upon seeing this, I searched for an outlet. The walls were a bare maroon and completely spotless.

My friends had gone off, exploring the other rooms. I felt compelled to walk up to the lamp. Its presence in the room felt off and I was curious. I needed to touch it, to wipe the dust off the shade, to feel the smoothness of the base. The rusted table only added to the peculiarity of the room. The light from the single window was beginning to dim; I knew I had to do this before the night took everything away.

I stood there waiting for myself.

I decided to take my shoes off before entering the room - no idea why, it just felt wrong to have them on in there. The first step I took felt cold on the wooden floor. I started forcing my second step - I was completely in the room now, alone with the lamp. I was urging myself to get closer to it; my need was building and my slow entry seemed to disrupt the calmness. My tiny steps formed into a stride as my body carried itself towards the window. I was three paces away when I felt it.

It was a strange feeling, like when you're watching someone and you think they haven't noticedyet. A strange pleasure that makes the hairs on your hand stick up. I took a step back and my foot began to tingle like it was numb, forcing me to stop. There was complete silence. Where were my friends? Something broke the silence and it sounded like someone was scratching or tapping a window. It sounded like it was right behind my head. There were two little taps, quiet as the tick of a clock. Once more, to the left of me, but like a drawer opening.

I could hear the ones behind me again; it fluctuated from ear to ear - two little taps. I took a few steps forward, closer to the window. The shadows on the floor seemed to dance. My hearing seemed to intensify. The lamp was in arms reach. My body seemed to itch with excitement and exhilaration. I had what I envisioned to be an ambrosia-like taste filling my mouth. Crack! Phht! Sounds filled my ears. I could hear tapping in front of me, following my eyes. I could hear the building settling around me, the footsteps of a child, birds singing behind me, tapping on the window, the sound of a clock ticking closer, and a plane taking off in the distance. Shadows seemed to gather around the table.

That familiar feeling of beings like humans or animals wasn't there. The shadows didn't have a presence to them - it was like empty darkness. However, I felt them touch me as they circled around the table. That's how I noticed them.

Daylight was fading away into night and the shadows were getting scarce. My eyes seemed to stop working as I stood there. It seemed like ages before anything happened. When it did, I faltered and covered my eyes; the lamp had turned itself on.

Yellow-orange flame-like light licked through the lampshade, growing steadily and slowly. The light seemed to be alive; it had a wild presence. I was in a trance staring into the lamp. True life seemed to emanate from underneath; the sadness seemed to cover the room. The shadows seemed to grab at the light, like death overwhelming its prey. My own shadow seemed to enjoy it also; it was standing towards the light, moving on its own. I knew it wanted to leave me. I could feel it tugging at my feet, unable to get free.

My feet started to tingle. I could feel the need of my own shadow. A little part of it detached itself from me and reattached again for an instant. In that moment that it was gone from where I stood, I felt exhilarated. I found myself urging it to go. I was trying to will it off me. I've never felt the love it felt for the light the lamp had before. A single tear fell down the side of my nose. The purity felt right. The desperation it felt seeped into me. There was only one foot left to free itself from. I started screaming in my head for myself to let go of whatever binding was keeping it from fleeing.

I tried to ignore the needles seeping into my fingers and going up my hands. The sharp sleep rose instantly to my elbows and a few seconds later into my shoulders. There was something wrong - incredibly wrong - about what was happening. I could no longer feel my fingers. My hands were starting to lose mobility. I hadn't even noticed I couldn't move my neck anymore.

My head was stationed downward, looking at my feet. My eyes didn't want to move. In my peripheral vision, I couldn't see my hands anymore. The black shapes of my own hands were on the floor next to my feet and growing. Nothing could move as the shadows fell from my body. I couldn't see my arms, but I knew they were gone. There was no pain, only darkness.

The lamp was fading. I knew I wouldn't be able to grasp the light when I was fully gone. I was now looking up at my legs in the dim light emanating from the lamp. Complete darkness was only moments away.

No one would believe me. The light from the sun had saved me. My friends left me. I knew they weren't my true friends anyway. One even said he didn't know why he didn't like me anymore. I was changed that night. The one thing they told me before they left was that I was brave for spending the night in that apartment. I don't even remember leaving.

(The image I got this image from said this was over 600 x 400 originally.. If I could get that original image, I'd appreciate it. Also, sorry about the horrible quality of it, that's the best I could get.)

Sunday, December 12, 2010

It was the biggest Halloween bash of the school year. This party was dedicated to the seniors. The basketball court was designed to look like an underworld. So, as usual you have the rowdy bunch who puts a little life in the party. Everyone was having a good time, getting crazy, dancing dirty, ignoring the teachers who told them behave. A newcomer to the school - let's call her Laurel - was having a hard time fitting in. No one would dance with her or talk to her. Whenever she tried to talk they ignored her and snubbed her. She was treated like a social leper. Laurel was at an all time low. So she sits in a corner and wallows in her own self pity.

One guy - let's call him Spike - noticed her and took a liking to Laurel. She wasn't ugly and would be much prettier if she smiled a lot more. The group of friends he was hanging out with were goths. They were the real thing despite the other seniors posing as goths just for the night. He taps one of his buddies on the shoulder and points at Laurel. They both smile and his buddy nudges him to go and talk to Laurel. He goes over to her and reaches out his hand for her to take. She takes it and he pulls her to her feet.

"Hey, The name is Spike, what's yours?" He askes her. Laurel is a little shy at all of the attention he's giving her, since Spike was very attractive with his good looks, dark hair, and dark eyes. "My name is Laurel, I've been here a week now."

Spike smiles at her and is smitten when he notices that she is trying to over come her shyness for him. Most girls would have said their name and clammed up afterwards.

"This school ain't so bad you have the occasional $&#%heads who think they got it all and the suburban B*tches who whine and moan about how the bathrooms are dirty, when it's their own piss and $&#% that makes it that way. Other than that I'm sure you'll survive this jungle 'till graduation."

Laurel is startled by his profane language and is fascinated by it and him as well. Spike smiles and is turned on by her innocence and fascination of him and his world.

"I can tell your not a shy person at all." Laurel tells him. "Hanging out with me will turn you that way too." His grin softens and he still holds her hand. "Hey do you wanna get out of this scene and have a real good time with my bro's a sissies over there?" He points to them and some of them smile and point their toungues at him playfully. Laurel smiles and feels comfortable with that.

Just as she is about to go with him, somebody pulls them apart and pushes Spike away from her. "Hey Lauren you really want to have a good time?" It was one of the suburban yuppies of the school - et's call him Griffon Baker. Laurel looks back at him and whispers, "My name...is Laurel not Lauren." Griffon shrugs. "Who gives a $&#% anyway? Do you wanna have a good time or not?" Spike looks at Griffon and pushes him back. "Leave her the f*@k alone; your f*@king scaring her." Griffon looks at him as if Spike had made a big mistake. "Touch me again and you'll regret it. Now get the hell outta here freak and take your burnt out friends with you!" Laurel is upset with Griffon and watches Spike swallow up his anger and look back at her. "If you still want to come we'll all be wating for you Laurel. Okay? I'll be waiting for you." Laurel nods to Spike and watches him turn and leave the party with his friends. Spikes freinds make faces and spit on the floor in disrespect to him as they leave the court. Spikes best buddy shouts an insult aloud for Griffon to hear. "Screw you Baker!"

Griffon laughs and ignores them. He keeps his eyes on Laurel. Soon his girfriend and some of their buddies join him and looks at Laurel as if if she were a mangy cat. "Tell you what, I'll set a bet with you. If you can do it you could join us. But that's only if you do win this bet." Laurel shakes her head. I don't want to join you or your fake *$$ clique Baker." Griffon and his group laugh at Laurels bold remark. "Oh really? It seems to me as if the freak and the rest of his burnouts put some balls in you. But I wonder how long is that smart mouth of yours is going to last. Cause in the end you'll always be under me."

Griffon's girlfriend tries to kiss him but he pushes her away. "F@#& off will you?" She looks at him with great resentment and turns to leave him. "Get back over here." He yells after her. She obeys him and returns to his side. But she is obviously not happy by the way he's embarrased her in front of everyone including Laurel.

Griffon turns back to Laurel. "If you fail then I never want to see your face around school. If you win..." He looks around at his friends as he keeps them in suspense. "I'll kiss Binky's *$$ over there. He points to an overweight guy making his way around the table and filling his plate that was already overflowing with food. Griffon's girlfriend looks at him with disgust. "You wouldn't dare!" She screams with horror and humiliation. Hell yes I would. He says in answer to her. She runs away from him and cries.

One of Griffon's buddies tells his girlfriend to follow her and comfort her. This time Griffon ignores her completely. Laurel knew that Binky was not his real name. And felt bad for him. But she soon realizes that she has the chance to embarass Griffon Baker before the whole school. She had the power. She would be remembered as the chick who stood up to Baker and his clique. And she wondered what would Spike think of her since Spike hated Griffon so much.

Laurel smiles at Griffon in defiance. "I'll take your bet." Griffon's best buddy pulls him to a corner and whispers to him. "Have you completely lost your mind? Ar..are you crazy?" Griffon shrugs at his freind. "Don't worry about it. I have the perfect bet." His freind looks at him suspiciously. "What are you up to man?" Laurel watches them whisper and wonders what was holding them up. She really wanted to get the bet over with so that she could join Spike and his buddies. She hears them both laugh and pat each other's shoulders. They both turn and face her and that made Laurel nervous for some reason.

"Okay here's the plan, you have to go to the Oakcreek cemetery and go the nearest grave you find there. But be careful I heard stories about this cemetery. I'm sure since you moved here you've heard of that place too." Laurel nods. Griffon looks back at his friend and snickers then he turns back and faces her to finish the rest of the bet. Well, there's this old legend. It's more of a warning actually. The warning is that you never strike a knife any of the graves there." Laurel looks at him confusedly. "Why?" Laurel askes him. "Do you really want to know?" Griffon says this in a way that sends a chill down Laurel's spine. After a few moments she answers him. "Yes." Griffon cocks his head to one side and nods at her.

"Alright. I'll tell you...If you strike the grave with a knife, legend has it that the hand of the owner of that grave will reach out of the ground and pull you into the grave with them to be buried alive with them for all eternity." Laurel shakes her head and doesn't belive a word that comes out of his mouth. Griffon is suprised when he sees that she isn't fazed by any of it. "You don't belive me do you?" Griffon asks her. He then orders his friend to get the butcher's knife from the table. Its blade was buried deep within the pork roast on the table. His friend pulls it out of there in such a way that makes everyone including Laurel wince. He hands it to Griffon. Griffon wipes the grease and sauce on the sleeve of his costume and hands the knife to Laurel. Pass and I pucker up to kiss his *$$. Fail and don't bother coming back to this school Spike and his freaks aren't welcome here either. She nods and turns to leave but Griffon stops her. "No leave out of the back of the school." He knew that Spike was still waiting for her out front and would mess things up.

As she leaves out of the back way Griffon looks at his friend and says, "She's bluffing. She'll never go along with it. She's gonna see the gates and will think twice before entering. Mark my words, all of you."

Laurel forgets how cold it was outside. She knew where the cemetary was and felt unsure about going along with the bet. She thought it was rather stupid and childish of her to go along with it. But it was too late for her to turn back. She made a promise and she would keep it. She thought about Spike and wondered if he was still waiting for her. It was a long walk to the cemetary but she was almost there.

God its cold, thought Laurel. Once she got to the front gate of the cemetary it was dark but the sky, even if it was dark as well, showed the silohette of the gate and the gravestones there. She was suddenly terrified. She had heard of the horrible stories of this graveyard. She also heard the way some people died horribly before they were buried there. I'm going to do this. I'm going to win. She calmly thought to herself. She climbed over the gate and was in. She looked around and found one little grave that was isolated from the rest. I can do this. Just one quick stab and i'll be done.

Once she made it to the grave she stood before it and stabbed the knife into the ground. Once she was going to leave something held on to her dress and wouldn't let her go. She tried to pull away and realized the legend came true. "Oh my god! Somebody! Someone help me! Please help." Her eyes blurred with tears and fear paralysed her. She fell to the ground.

Hours went by and Spike never saw Laurel. He grew worried and it was midnight. To him it was Halloween. Even thought he wasn't scared of the holiday, he felt that there was something terribly wrong. The Halloween party was long over and not alot of people were there. By then all of Spike's friends were gone, he told them all to go without him so that he could wait for Laurel. But she never came. He wanted to go back inside of the building but the student that took the tickets said that he couldn't go back in without one. He ignores the student and enters the building. There was no sign of Laurel any where. But he saw Griffon and a few of his buddies. He runs to them and stops them.

"Where the hell is she Baker?" Griffon looks at him and acts as if he was clueless. "What are you talking about?" Spike grows infuriated. "Where is she you stupid f@%#!" Griffon looks at Spike and realizes what he had just said. He's not angered by what he said but instead he grows a little worried as well.

"Maybe she went home?" Griffon says to Spike. Spike shakes his head impatiently. "No. That can't be right because she was supposed to meet up with me later. Were did she go?" Griffon tells him of the bet and tells him of how he sent her to the Oakcreek cemetary. Spike is outraged and yells at Griffon. "Jesus Baker! Why'd you tell her to go to a place like that! What the F@#% is wrong with you?"

Griffon along with his friends and Spike take his car to the cemetary to look for Laurel. They all climb over the gates and use flashlights from Griffon's car to search for Laurel. It was a big cemetary and they all separated to look for the girl. It wasn't long before one of Griffon's friends screamed and sent the rest of them running. Griffon got there and started to cry like a little boy. Spike was the last person to get there. As he got nearer and nearer to the little crowd he felt a sudden gut wrenching feeling. He pushed past them and his heart broke when he saw Laurel's tiny body crumpled on the ground. She was so terrified of the legend becoming true that she had died of a heart attack. But what really had happened was what she thought was the zombie's hand reaching to pull her into the grave was really the knife she had stabbed through her dress and into the ground.